"D" the Ranter is Colorado's #1 Multi-sport MLBlogger. The Rant is written from a fan's perspective and you can count on "D" to tell you exactly how it is. Tried and Tested…There's a reason the Rant kicks ass in Colorado.

Thanks to my regular readers for your support for this past year. Remember the Rant during spring training.

As I prepare for this upcoming trip and season I will post a link to some of my favorite snagging entries from last season… One of my Fav’s

I took a trip to Colorado Springs yesterday to visit an old Army buddy.

Meet Joe Smith..aka Miles Long.

He developed the Miles Long alter-ego after years of people not believing his real name when he told it to them.

There are a lot of Joe Smiths out there but this one is the real deal.

Joe and I were in the Army together and worked together at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs after we finished our tours.

I wanted “Miles Long” to come to Tucson with us but he has schedule conflicts and can’t make it this year.

QUESTION: If you had the most popular name in America like Joe does, what “secondary name/alter ego” would you come up with for yourself?

I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into over at Mets Main Man. But I can tell you I’ve finished my first assignment. I love a good adventure and at this point I have no idea whatsoever what this dude is up to but I’m going to roll with in anyway.

Today I’m working on my final Banner for the Moblie Blog Unit.

(The moment you’ve all been waiting for…This is NOT the MBU)

Meanwhile,… Andy my co-pilot for the spring training/MBU adventure sliced open his finger open right by his knuckle while attempting to sharpen a knife.

He received eight stitches in this glove hand.

The way the healing process works it looks like the stitches will need to be removed around game two at Hi Corbett. A real man removes his own stitches, it’s cheaper.

It’s time for another edition of:

“Which Rockie Am I”

Today’s Rockies Playerwas born west of Colorado in the 70’s.

He’s exactly the same size as me.

He was paid less than a million dollars for last season.

He’s in one of last year’s Rockies commericals.

That’s it…Good Luck

Again I just want to thank the folks who frequent the Rant. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy seeing Rockies blogs in the Top 50. Props to all MLBLoggers for what you do.

My mission is to promote my team and get them some respect and it’s working thanks to you.

Be ready, in about eight days I’m going to be coming at you like a broken maple bat on a mission…D

Sue asked that I give props to Jen from Phillies Phollowers for taking this picture of Sue at last year’s Baseball 101 for women event.

Here are the facts I gave you from yesterday.

This Rockie is well over six feet tall.

He played basketball in High School.

<—-This dude has something to do with the name of this player’s High School.

He’s a switch hitter.

Sue guessed Dexter Fowler. He attended Milton High School where he played basketball. He’s 6’5″ tall, and is a switch hitter.

Nice job and congratulations. I did make that one kind of easy🙂.

I’m going to continue on with the “Decide the Ride” suggestions and questions.

Next question is from Julia of Julia’s Rants . She’s the writer of the Number one fan blog here on MLBlogs.com:

“D — how about earliest memory about baseball. That “ah -ha!” moment when you knew you were hooked!.

Julia, I played team baseball when I was really young (7-11) and then only in gym class in Canada through my teens.

I always played first base because it sees a lot of action and I’m a bit of a show off when I’m good at something.

I love the feeling of making that really good play at first or scoring the game winning run.

Everyone loves being a hero, even if it’s only for a brief moment.

Zack Hample and the Rockies got me hooked on batting practice. If I can’t make BP I usually don’t make the game. Spend an hour at BP chasing baseballs hit by your favorite players and see if that doesn’t get you excited about seeing a baseball game.

I’ve said this before, batting practice is Zen for me. When I’m there I’m “In my Zone” and NOTHING else matters for that short period of time. Had I not read Hample’s words and lived vicariously through his blog, I may never have taken a chance and attended a Rockies BP.

Next suggestion is from my Pops in Arizona:

“How about writing about the insane salaries they pay. No wonder these guys get in so much trouble. Too much too fast. You and I are paying for all this when we buy the product of the sponsors”.

Your totally right Pops I can’t argue with that statement. What I can tell you is not every player makes the “Big Bucks”. For every player that signs a multi-million dollar contract, there are twenty other MLB players who make much less than a million.

Teams have farm systems that are full of young ball players trying to make it to the big leagues. Most players spend several years in the farm system honing their skills, hoping for that break, and working part-time jobs to supplement their income and support their families.

Other than that, I got nothing. Thanks for your comment dad :)

Next suggestion is from long-time reader, commenter and HUGE Rockies fan, Marianne in Colorado (aka here as R-Luv).

“Hey D,Which do you think is more detrimental to a team, paying certain players enormous salaries or trading players around like playing cards.On a more fun note, what was your first car and what is your dream car?

Marianne, this one is short and sweet for me. In my opinion paying the enormous salaries is more detrimental to a team because when you lock in a player for more than a couple of years and it’s for big money, it limits your moves financially. In some instances it can cripple a team if say,..the player is injured or had surgery and can’t play? (That in no way was a slam on Todd Helton).

Helton can do no wrong here in the Rockpile Rant.

Trading players often isn’t a great move either. But here’s my take on that. Most players (key word being “most”) wouldn’t be where they are if they weren’t professionals. By professional I mean they should be used to seeing players come and go.

Change is a part of baseball as it is with all sports. Sorry I didn’t go into prolific detail with that explanation, but for me theanswer really doesn’t go much deeper than that.

My dream car: 2009 Jeep Rubicon with a 6 inch lift and a heavy duty winch. Then I could hang with my Pop’s jeep.

King of Cali had a good question:

“If you were the GM of the Rockies what would you have done this off season?”

This is a touchy subject for me. On one hand I have a lot of ideas of what “should” have been done as I’m sure a lot of us do. But I don’t want to mention any names at this point because I’ll be standing in front of these guys in mere days asking them for an autograph.

K of C..You feel me on this one?

So lets just say, I was hoping for a big name pitcher and was willing to lose one as partial payment for another. Infielders, outfielders and coaching I’m ok with. A big name hitter would have been nice, but I’m anxious to get rolling with the players we have and see what we’ve got.

Thanks for your comment brotha..Matter of fact, thank all of you. The last time I told you that the Rant has been getting crazy page hits I moved one spot closer to first.

You can tell it’s getting close, everyone is eager to talk baseball and share their autograph and collection stories. The idea in my last blog entry was “You pick the topic” and I’ll write about it. Most of you chose to ask questions of me. I guess I didn’t take that into consideration.

(<—-Hunter and his Grandpa at his first Rockies game in 1999).

You could have picked any topic besides me, but I’ll roll with this. I’ll answer them all in time. I still have ten days before I’m blogging at the high speed of 65 MPH

This one is from Jere80 (he responded first):

“I’m always interested in how people become fans of teams that didn’t exist when they were young, and therefore what team they grew up rooting for before their current team existed. So maybe you could tell us that about yourself?

Jere, my story is different from most. I was a Yankee fan until my parents moved us up to Canada at age 11 (1978). There was really no organized baseball in my High School and I would have to say most of our Schools budget was spent on indoor sports (mostly hockey), because of the sub-zero (at times) temperatures.

So my exposure to baseball of any sort was severely limited. Remember there was no internet back in the late 70’s early 80’s.

So I grew up with no affiliation to any baseball team.

As a kid I followed the Edmonton Eskimos in the CFL, and it was cool living in the same Province as Wayne Gretzky back when he was an Edmonton Oiler and in his prime.

I don’t really follow hockey anymore but in my opinion it’s still the best sport to see live .

When I finished my Military service I decided to stay in Colorado. It was a that point I knew I was going to be a Bronco and later on down the road, a Rockies fan.

(<—-Balanced Rock inside the Garden of the Gods where Krista and I were married).

I fell in love with Colorado and it would be hard for me to support a team that I couldn’t see play at least every now and then.

Plus, what a nickname..”The Blake Street Bombers” as a former military guy I love that name.

The Broncos, Rockies and later the Nuggets worked out perfect for me at the time, and all within an hours drive.

So as you can see I became a Rockies fan well into my adulthood. Going to a Rockies game to me is like reliving a part of my childhood that I missed due to geographical location. I’m a kid again from the second I walk through those gates. I don’t get that from anything else in the world.

The Rockpile Ranter was born because of the lack of respect the Rockies received during their amazing World Series run. I attended my first game as the Rockpile Ranter March of last year in Tucson. I’ve been on a Rant ever since…

JERE-I’ve come up with another segment of the Rant that I’m going to call:

WHICH ROCKIE AM I ?

I’ll give you some interesting facts about a player (should you choose to accept this challenge), and you will have to figure out who it is.

As always, whoever wins send me your picture and I’ll make you famous…D

This Rockie is well over six feet tall.

He played basketball in High School.

<—-This guy has something to do with the naming of his this player’s High School.

He’s a switch hitter….This one’s easy..Good Luck !

JERE, thanks for “Deciding the Ride” today.

In celebration of pitchers and catchers officially getting back to work, I’ve included in this entry:

I’m a guy who likes to do things first, a blogging pioneer you might say. So I have what I believe is a “different” idea and if it works I’m going to roll with it every now and then.

One of the things I like about blogging is it’s not so much about the story. It’s all about the presentation.

I’d like to prove my point.

I’m going to take suggestions on what my next blog entry should be about. It’ll be fun and it’s good practice for me.

I’m going to call it “Decide the Ride”.

I have no idea what some of you might suggest and I think it’s good to venture beyond what you become routinely comfortable with.

So hit me with your best idea for a topic or story.

It doesn’t have to be about me, it can be about anything (except steroids). For the first one of these I get to decide which one of the suggested topics I blog about. I might be able to do several in one entry.

Your choice can be serious or crazy or both. Let’s see what you’ve got.

I was reading his blog and apparently he’s upset because he feels he writes an intelligent blog and for some reason his blog stopped getting front page love.

So he’s switched to his own blogging platform. He had been a blogger here at MLBLogs.com for the last couple of years.

The man writes a decent blog, way to many NY details for me but still an interesting read.

It’s obvious that he pissed someone off. I should know, I’ve been known to tap dance on the line. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want any front page coverage. I see the same blogs getting mentioned all the time and I’m fine with that, they’re good blogs.

Here’s the deal, the Rockpile Rant will remain in the top ten blogs despite no extra attention and I’m ok with that.

When it’s my turn for the number one spot I’ll have a special dedication to everyone who helped me along the way.

I just hope I haven’t P’d off too many people in the right positions. (You know I love you all).

I’m hoping for a little publicity when the MBU is in down in Tucson. All I can do is hope for the best and try to be nice.

This is my year and whether I get help/exposure or not, doesn’t matter.

I’m in Tucson for the fan that can’t make it down there. You like my point of view because I make the game seem real. I appreciate that my readers get that from me.

If you don’t get that from me, why are you here wasting your time? Go away.

Did your hear that ESPN suspended Scott Van Pelt for verbally attacking Bud Selig on the radio. He called Selig a pimp..lol.

Think about what a pimp does and then think about what Bud’s job is. I’m just saying…

That gleaming dome Van Pelt has makes a good point.

17.5 million a year for the Commissioner, yep that’s outrageously insane. If you asked me what I would have guessed his salary was I would have guessed a couple of million plus travel expenses and all the balls he can play with.

For that kind of money I want Bud’s real signature on every ball used in professional baseball. He’s getting over on us with that pre-printed autograph crap they use now.

I take that back, I don’t want Selig anywhere near my balls :)

17.5 million is almost $50,000 a day. He makes more in one day than I make in a year. Granted that not just anybody can graduate to Selig’s position but come on.

A fitting end to Selig’s reign would be him getting laid off (no severance) and replaced with someone half his age at 1/10 his current salary.

It happens all the time in America and it’s always a sad story.

Now if that actually transpired, I wouldn’t feel sorry for Bud at all…Sorry dude, but your not worth 17.5 million don’t kid yourself.

I think your getting over on all of baseball. Your salary is a flagrant disgrace to baseball fans and ticket purchasers everywhere.

The position of “Commissioner of Baseball” needs a salary cap instituted, immediately.

$50,000 a day, weekends too…get the F*ck out of here. For some reason knowing Selig makes that much money makes me feel insignificant and poor.

I suffered through A-Rods admission of guilt today and I’ve made a decision. I’ll always be a baseball guy, but statistics from 1990-2005 mean nothing to me anymore. I’m sorry for all the non-juicers who get no credit but hey…you guys knew and you didn’t say sheet.

It has to be that way, I have no idea what’s real and what isn’t during that particular era, so I’ve chosen to forget those 15 years worth of statistics.

A decade and a half of lying, cheating and degradation of our beautiful sport.

Cycling as a sport has no trouble stripping it’s athletes of their title’s. Maybe baseball should consider that bold move. That would definately send a message.

That’s not going to happen, stuff like that scares the sheet out of Selig. Lets have a clean fresh start to this season with no more steroid shockers.

The top dog has fallen, does anybody even care who falls next?

My next blog entry will be about “Baseball in 2050” ..Check back for it…D

I love going to Coors Field. I think the staff there is the best in the business. We arrived at Coors Field about 8:40 am to get in line to purchase Rockies tickets. After we arrived we found out that getting there early didn’t really matter because the lottery was in effect.

Feeling lucky I reached into a box full of numbered wristbands and pulled out my number for line placment. I pulled line one # 37.

At the time a was a little bummed because I pulled #37 and there were maybe 15 people there waiting with me. No worries though it all worked out good. While we were standing in line a Rockies representative who I later found out is named “Steve”, walked up to me and asked if my daughter would be willing to help him with the lottery.

Mylee said sure, she was thrilled to do it. Here’s how it worked, there were five lines of people. There were five baseballs in the bucket labeled from 1-5. Mylee’s job was to draw the order in which each row was able to get in line for tickets…simple.

The way the Rockies set up it seemed like a system that was designed for a large group of ticket buyers. By the time Mylee started to pick baseballs out of the bucket there were maybe 70 people total in all five rows.

It was cool though, the Rockies were prepared in case of a large turnout and everything went smoothly.

At the end of the second video I you can hear me mention to Mylee to ask for a baseball (hey we’re baseball snaggers..that’s what we do), I was really just kidding and didn’t expect anything but Steve said that he’d hook her up.

Mylee picked line 1 (my line), second. She loved that she was picked to do this over Hunter because Hunter has more baseball stories than her, and this is a good one.

I walked up to Steve and thanked him, then slipped him a Ranter card and told him I’d have blog entry up by Monday.

So in one big long line they marched the whole group of us from the Rockpile Gates over to the main ticket window. As we walked around the building we could see Dinger over by the ticket window waiting for us.

Rockies,….that was a nice touch. Let me explain something about my last blog entry about Dinger. I don’t want the dude who’s inside Dinger to lose his job. (I’m sure he has little Dingett’s somewhere), I just wanted to see (or not see), inside of a tougher looking mascot for the Rockies.

Dinger grabed the control stick of this nice ladies wheelchair and was messing with her. She loved it.

Below is a video of Dinger messing around with a few other people.

While we were killing time waiting to get our tickets, Steve from the lottery walked up to Mylee and presented her with a Rockies backpack. She opened it up and inside was a 2007 League Championship collectible trophy, a MLB baseball, a Rockies hat and a Rockies rally towel.

I couldn’t believe it. Steve, thank you again. You didn’t have to do all that. In fact you didn’t have to do anything.

We’re always at the games early for batting practice so we can snag baseballs.

Mylee would have been thrilled if you had just tossed her one of the baseballs in the bucket.

That gift was “above and beyond” and she hasn’t stopped talking about it since :)

Seeing that “random act of kindness” from a Rockies employee made me smile and think about how proud I am to spend my time supporting “my team” the Rockies,..on multiple levels.

Steve can you hook it up so I won’t get in trouble parking the MBU at Hi Corbett field during the daytime March 24-Feb 3rd?

It’s worth a shot. I think I’m ok parking there (we’ll be there bright and early), but you never know.

Once they opened the ticket windows the line moved at a pretty good pace. People were purchasing large numbers of tickets, but every ticket window was open so that helped with the flow.

I wasn’t there to clean house on tickets. Remember I have a trip to Tucson coming up so that requires a wee bit of cash in itself. I picked up a few extra Rockpile tickets for opening day and the fireworks game pm July 3rd. Then I redeemed a few free game coupons that I had received last season for the kids and I.

End of my story. Sorry if you thought you might hear mention of Tulo or Helton. This story does however have a happy ending. That would be my daughter Mylee’s smile.

Only two weeks left the Mobile Blog Unit is officially mobile.

(This rather interesting camper is not the Mobile Blog Unit—–>)

On Dan’s recomendation I have taken my Jersey to Denver Atheletic to have “REAL” lettering stitched on professionally.

I’ve been tossing around a few ideas about improving the “Fan experience at Coors”. You know me, it’s all about having a good time and making memories.

RANTER’S IDEAS FOR A BETTER COOR’S FIELD FAN EXPERIENCE..PART 1

1. The Sky Sox in Colorado Springs have a hot tub for their fans in their stadium. The Rockies should copy this amazing idea. It could be built over by the bullpens in the grassy waterfall area. If you catch a home run all while soaking in the hot tub you would win a season pass.

If you manage to stay in the hot tub for the entire game, you would receive a Rockies water bottle and beach towel.

2. I’m always hungry at a baseball game. It doesn’t matter if I eat something just before I go inside. A ballpark makes you hungry. They’re designed that way.

I want a really freggin good taco bar as long as it has some sort of state of the art sneeze guard. You know it and I know it, sometimes a big fat taco hits the spot like nothing else. If your a vegetarian/plant killer, just omit the taco meat. If your a vegan,.. your F’ked.

A good deal to me would be all you can eat tacos for ten bucks. You’d get a wristband and then later when your hungry you could go back again for seconds.

3. I think there should be a master craftsman on hand making actual baseball bats. How cool would itbe to have your own bat created right before your very eyes? You could then run down to the field and try and get a few autographs on it?

The “Bat Man” could demonstrate his craft for all while on display in a protected glass room. Sort of like “The boy in the plastic bubble” except at the end of the day this man can go home and have a nice clean cold crisp “Colorado microbrew” after a hard days labor of love.

4. I think ballplayers should meet and greet the fans as they enter the Stadium. There’s always one or two players who are injured and can’t play. There’s not a damn thing they can do for the team while they’re hurt.

Why not let them perform some “Public Relations work” by saying “Hello” to the fans who help pay their salaries and frequent the ballpark?

UPDATE 1/8/09: I was talking with Dan and apparently the Rockies attempted this a few times last season. I’m not sure how I missed that but I did..Credit where credit is due..Thank you Rockies…D

I believe that would be a win/win situation for a couple of reasons. It lets the injured player feel useful while he’s injured and it gives the fan a more “personal” experience. Imagine entering Coors and having Jeff Francis standing there saying “Welcome to Coors Field” or “Thanks for supporting us”.

If Willie Mays wasn’t too proud to do it, neither should any other player be. It’s the little things that make your experience. I think that would be a nice touch.

5. I’m sorry, Dinger’s sweet and all (kids dig him), but to be honest the Rockies need a mascot that makes a statement when other teams have to play here.

A team’s image starts with it’s mascot. Our mascot’s name rhymes with Winger. I can’t tell you how wrong that is.

If you had to choose a different species of dinosaur and a new name for the Rockies Mascot, what would you choose?

It may really be time for this folks…Imagine seeing brand new badazz dinosaur mascot on opening day at Coors Field. The place would go nuts. I’m picturing a black purple and silver dinosaur with big mean boney spikes with one hell of an attitude.

I know, I’m thinking so far out of the box I’m driving the UPS truck.

Can you tell I’m ready for some baseball?

One more thing, MLBlogs.com is officially full of Blog names that contain the word Rant. I’m just saying…D

I try to live my life on an even keel. I shy away from extreme highs or lows. I prefer a middle of the road type of existance.

I breeze through life not trying to upset any more people than I make happy.

It’s my version of balance.

My point is this: Things are good with me right now, really good. This blog “The Rockpile Rant”, came in at number five. For months now I have managed to stay in the top ten. Thank you regular readers, Rockies fans and other bloggers.

I can’t explain it. I love the fact that a simple, mildly opinionated, good looking guy like me can rival some of the best bloggers out there.

I put a lot of work into my blog, (because I’m NOT a writer). If I was a writer this stuff would come a lot easier to me.

This is what I am,…I’m a reality blogger with a passion for baseball. With your help I’ve carved a niche here at MLBlogs that I plan to keep strong hold of.

I’ll keep reading yours, you keep reading mine. Together we’ll all get smarter.

I have had the worst luck with lettering. I loved the T-Shirt but if you step back a few feet the Rockpile Ranter becomes difficult to read.

Rule # 1 with a Ranter shirt: The lettering has to be large enough to be visible on television.

I wrote the business owner and told him that I wasn’t unhappy, I just wondered why he had spaced the letters so close together.

The gentleman wrote me back and said that he would have needed to use two transfer sheets to do that and the auction clearly stated that only one sheet was used for the lettering. He also informed me about how he was tired of people using their feedback on him as hostage.

I wrote back again and informed him that retaliation wasn’t my intent. I was just asking in case I ever wanted purchase another one of these T-Shirts. I gave the man positive feedback and left it at that.

About a week later I received a package in the mail. I opened it up and look what I found inside:Not only did he make me another shirt just the way I wanted, he made me two of them. NO CHARGE. That was cool. See how well you can read this lettering?

Thank you Mr T-Shirt dude? You sir have a loyal customer.

Anybody want the first shirt? I’ll give it to you, but you have to hand out my Ranter cards when people say “What the hell is a Rockpile Ranter? Believe me…it happens.

In case your wondering on the status of the letter “P” from a previous entry? I have returned all of the letters for a refund. They couldn’t get it right after three times and Dan convinced me that the quality of the lettering was crap and that I could do better elsewhere.

Great Superbowl yesterday (at least the 4th quarter). I had predicted Cardinals over Steelers 24-21.

Had they ended the game a few minutes early I’d have been damn close at 23-20, oh well.

Thank you for your kind comments on the John Breaux entry.

The public outpouring of support for this man has been unbelievable. John literally touched thousands of people. I haven’t had anything “hit me” like this particular tragedy has in a long time.

Apparently I’m not the only one, not by a longshot. The cities of Louisville and Lafayette are still grieving.

Twenty days till the MBU makes it’s rolling blogging debut. New additions to the MBU will be a meat smoker (for smoking ribs and chicken), and Andy will be bringing his RockBand for the Wii.

Jealous yet? Remember,…. we still have an opening, but much like E Harmony, we have a 100 question compatibility test. gauging you on all different levels.

Most importantly can you sing? If I’m on drums and Andy is on guitar…we’ll need a singer.

But hey, sit at home and don’t go…just gives us more room and I get your plate of ribs.

Relax,…if you’re not up for a “Road Trip” dont fret, You know my coverage of “Rockies Spring Training 2009” is going to be Bullitzer worthy.

MLB Network eat your heart out on this one. You may have your makeup, cameras and writers, but what you don’t have is a fan’s perspective.

That’s me…Keep’n it real.

There is only one “Mobile Blog Unit”.

(<——–This is not the MBU)

I invented it, I’ll be piloting it, and you my loyal reader will be reaping the rewards of it.

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